The Coast to Coast Trail closely follows the line of two historic transport routes. The early horse-worked Portreath tramroad opened in 1812. This was the first surface tramroad in Cornwall. It gave the copper mines around Scorrier and St Day a transport route to the sea at Portreath. The other was the Redruth & Chasewater Railway. This was built from 1825 and linked the town of Redruth and mines around Gwennap, then the richest copper producing area in the world, to the port of Devoran on the south coast.